


Play Too Rough

by Candyfloss_And_Fairymoss



Category: Cuphead (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Death, M/M, cuphead and mugman are 21+ in all my writings, poor king dice, we meet dice's parent sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 07:37:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13162332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candyfloss_And_Fairymoss/pseuds/Candyfloss_And_Fairymoss
Summary: Ever since he was a child, King Dice has been told he plays too rough. He was always sorry, he always tried to do better, but he simply plays too rough.He doesn't realize how badly he wishes he could be gentle until he breaks something irreplaceable.





	Play Too Rough

You play too rough, Dicey.", his momma scoops him into her lap as he cries over the toy truck in the floor, its wheels broken into pieces.

"You play too rough, you break all your toys and that breaks your little heart.", she kisses his forehead and wipes his tears away with her apron, "Hush now, if you can be gentle, I'll get you some dough and you can roll cookies."

He stops sobbing, but remains weepy, rolling the dough flat and covering himself in flour, the cookies he stamps all come out slightly wonky, but they'll taste just fine.

His pop fixes the toy truck, black buttons replace the broken wheels.

"Be careful, Dicey!", his father calls behind him after regaining the wind Dice's hug knocked away, "Don't play so rough!"

He tries not to, he really does.

....................................................................

"KINGSLEY DICE!"

He comes out from under his bed and hangs his head low, shuffling his way down the hall and to his mother. He avoids her gaze and stares at her house slippers, tapping angrily.

"Kingsley, did you break this vase!?", she points to a vase that was previously precariously pieced together with a lick and a promise, but now is in scattered pieces across the coffee table.

"... I didn't mean to. I tried to fix it but-,"

"HOW did you break it?"

"......."

"Speak up!"

"I was playing."

She huffs and throws her hands up in dismay as he twiddles his fingers and hopes she won't say his most dreaded sentence.

"Kingsley, if you want to play you go outside! You play too rough!", she turns him round and swats his behind once, he barely feels it but yelps all the same, "Go to your room, and just you wait till your Daddy gets home!"

"I'm sorry, Momma!", he calls back as he runs to his room, he doesn't want to make her angrier. This is the third vase he's broken in 2 months.

...................................................................

He isn't sure how he did it but he's done it.

Matt. Errdor, the biggest child in his school, lays on the ground and wails before him, holding his broken off horn.

If you could call the little nubs on his head horns, either way, one is much shorter and he complains of pain.

He barely has time to apologize before the schoolyard attendant grabs him by his collar and carries him into the school.

The principal has words with him, Matt's parents have words with his daddy, and he rides home in the car in silence.

"I didn't mean to.... He threw the ball at me and hit me and I didn't wanna play so I told him...", he pauses to wipe a tear from his face as he gets more upset, "I told him to leave me alone, but he said I was a baby!"

His daddy doesnt speak, just drives.

"I threw it back to prove I wasn't and, and he kept goin and hit me again so I said "Stop or I'll hit you a purpose!" and he dared me to try and I..... I just threw it hard and I didn't mean to throw THAT hard.... I said I was sorry."

The car stops at a crosswalk, lets a woman and a stroller pass, and they go on their way.

"Kingsley."

He hiccups, his father only calls him Kingsley when he's tired or displeased.

"You play too rough."

"I wasn't playing!"

"I know, but you still hurt someone. Kingsley I don't wanna hear of you bustin up kids like some brute. Behave yourself, am I clear?"

".... Yes, Papa."

That night he finishes his dinner and goes to bed without asking about a cookie. He listens to his parents as they peep in on him, making sure he's asleep.

"He'd never hurt someone on purpose, he's a good boy. He just plays too rough."

" The other kid hit him first, and he warned him, I didn't punish him, but its still gonna get him in trouble at school."

He shuts his eyes as his momma leans and presses a kiss on his cheek. His daddy runs a hand over his head, deposits a glass of water on his nightstand, and they head to bed.

Their voices stay with him.

_You play too rough You play too rough You play too rough You play too rough You play too rough You play too rough_

...................................................................

Ever since he broke his momma's vase, he's hated the sound of breaking porcelain. Glass, china, porcelain.

He chalks the fact that he gasps when he hears it now to his hatred of the sound.

Same with the feeling of dread and worry, same with how he screams at the other contender as he continues to fight without his fallen brother.

He chalks the fact that he winces just as hard as the fighter as he crunches over broken porcelain to the hatred of the sound.

He doesn't care. Cups break all the time, there is nothing new or special about this.

He screams at the blue one to face the Devil if he's so brave, clutching at his side and trying to ignore how badly his eye throbs. Mugman runs from the room, sobbing, he says he'll be back.

Dice laughs until he's out of sight.

Then he's alone.

No, not alone. He has company.

Silent, broken, shattered, dead company.

He walks on eggshells as he approaches the body, he isn't sure why, but he feels -he knows- he mustn't step on the scattered pieces of porcelain. He stops just by the largest piece and bends.

Its odd, unsettling, how he looks like a regular cup from this angle, he reaches out and grasps his handle, turning him over to see his face.

He could be sleeping, his eyes are unfocused and dark and glazed, his mouth agape and slack, his head is empty of drink and his straw clatters to the ground.

Whatever calm he had has snapped. He picks up his head and walks slowly. carefully to his body. It lays crumpled in the corner, bent at such unnatural angles his heart leaps into his throat at first. He kneels and sits it up against the wall and moving Cuphead's head to sit atop it.

For a moment it stays, chipped and glassy eyed and slack jawed and horrific, and then it falls. Dice catches it and tries again, pressing down this time.

It falls again. He tries again, growing more and more frantic all the while.

The sixth time he tries, and his hands shake so very much he only blames himself, Cup's head falls and for a moment he thinks he can catch him.

The cold porcelain bounces off his outstretched fingers and dashes into a million pieces across the floor.

The sound hits him first before the realization. He looks out over a sea of porcelain shards.

Not a one looking like him, not a one making any distinction of what it once was.

He laughs, a hollow sound, its more of a bark of surprise than a laugh. Another, and this time he recognizes it as a sob. He reaches for the piece closest, as if he could put him to rights like a puzzle, and then hes aware of tears dripping down his face.

"I didn't mean to.", a whisper, lonely and low and quiet, "I tried to fix you. I didn't mean to."

Part of him is sure he didn't, he was supposed to knock the brothers down a peg, make them give up, make them too weak to fight.

Now one is dead.

One that had asked him to blow on his dice for good luck as they celebrated their 24th birthday in the casino, the one that had insisted that Dice was the prettiest dame in the place when told thats who he should ask to blow on them, the one who had kept up the flirting even as Dice lied and cheated them into a corner under their noses.

The one who had walked through his die houses and smiled at him, the one who would make vehemently sure his brother was safe while still endangering himself -endearing himself- to Dice.

Dead. Broken.

He broke him.

Lied to him, cheated him, felt something for him, fought him, and broke him.

 _You play too rough Dicey_.

He finds himself sobbing a little harder as the thought flits through his mind.

 _You play too rough_.


End file.
